“All refugees have a story of resilience.” So
Asukulu Songolo began the speech that won him second place in the
original composition section for eighth graders at the Valley Catholic
Middle School speech tournament last spring.

Portland real estate developer Joe Weston will receive the Elizabeth Ann Seton Award from the National Catholic Educational Association at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., Oct. 2.The national prize is named after St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who in 1809 founded the Sisters of Charity in Maryland and had a lifelong dedication to teaching.

BRIDAL VEIL — Flames
licked within 15 feet of their convent driveway, but the building was
untouched. For the second time in 26 years, the Franciscan Sisters of
the Eucharist averted a forest fire racing through the windy Columbia
River Gorge.

The Tualatin Valley Vicariate Oct. 6-8 puts on its second annual Youth on Fire rally for teens and young adults. Taking a page from political debate, the theme is “Fake News vs. the Good News: Discerning and Witnessing the Truth of the Gospel in the Secular World.”Set at St. Anthony Parish in Forest Grove, Friday is for young adults, Saturday for middle schoolers and Sunday for high school students.

This summer, Secular Franciscans of the Pacific Northwest celebrated 25 years for their regional fraternity. A gathering of the order, made up of laity and diocesan priests who live and work in the world, took place at Our Lady of Peace Retreat House in Beaverton. The Secular Franciscan Order was founded by St. Francis in the 13th century. And it is an order, not a lay apostolate. St. Francis didn’t regard the group as lesser than the friars who gathered around him or the women who joined St. Clare, says Evelyn Brush, a member of Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Southeast Portland and newly elected minister of the local fraternity of the Secular Franciscans.

Lindsay Caron has run in races and participated in triathlons for the past 15 years. The upcoming Portland Marathon Oct. 8 will be her fourth full marathon. And this year, she’s running for life.“I always run better when I run for a cause,” wrote the stay-at-home mom of two little boys in an email.

Almost a third of the massive South Hillsboro housing development will be built on ground once owned by the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon. About 20,000 people are expected to live within the 1,400-acre project, the largest planned residential development in Oregon history. In the mix is a 476-acre farm donated by bequest to the religious community in 1957.

BEAVERTON — Celebrating and fostering vocations to the priesthood and religious life will be the theme of a Mass and dinner set for St. Cecilia Parish Saturday, Oct. 14. The 5 p.m. Mass that evening will have Archbishop Alexander Sample as main celebrant and senior priests of the archdiocese as concelebrants. Seminarians will be liturgical ministers and will greet parishioners after Mass.

Newly ordained Father Zani Pacanza is serving at St. James Parish in McMinnville. That’s where he’ll stay until assigned elsewhere, but at the start of 2018, he leads an 11-day pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The group will go to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, Capernaum and Tel Aviv and visit holy sites including the Via Crucis, the site of the Last Supper, Gethsemane, the Dormition and the Church of the Nativity.

Oregon’s Catholic writer Brian Doyle will be remembered by his literary pals at a celebration set for Thursday, Sept. 21, 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church in downtown Portland. Doyle, who died of brain cancer in May, was a Sentinel columnist, editor of Portland magazine and author of essays and novels.

A 2012 survey by the American Association of Retired Persons found that 9 in 10 seniors intend to live in their current homes for the next five to 10 years. The same investigation revealed that among Americans 70 and older, only 43 percent find it very easy to live independently.

SPRINGFIELD — Catholic Community Services now offers immigration legal services in Lane County. Help for lower-income immigrants hoping to normalize their status is available in English and Spanish. Lise Colgan, a worker at the Springfield Community Service Center, will meet with immigrants and send their cases to legal staff in Portland.

Providence Foundations of Oregon announced a $2 million gift from Columbia Sportswear President and CEO Tim Boyle and his wife, Mary, to Providence Heart Institute. The money will aid research and analysis. Tim Boyle’s father, Neal Boyle, died from a sudden heart attack in 1970 at age 47.

Thousands of black Catholic adults, teens, religious and clergy gathered in Orlando, Florida, in early July for the National Black Catholic Congress. One session explored unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and the Archdiocese of St. Louis. Delegates, who filled the room so that many had to stand, heard the lessons learned and got a rundown on best practices.

If Oregon State football is going to pick up where it left off last year, Ryan Nall needs to pick up where he left off.The former Central Catholic star ended last football season in legendary fashion, scoring four touchdowns to lead Oregon State to a 34-24 win over Oregon. The in-state rivalry game, nicknamed the “Civil War,” has been played every year since 1894. It was the Beavers’ first win over the Ducks since 2007.

The Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women recently changed spiritual advisers. After more than a dozen years, Father Charles Zach, pastor of St. Henry Parish in Gresham, has resigned from the position. ACCW board members say they will miss the priest’s sage advice and insightful reflections at meetings. Archbishop Alexander Sample has approved the appointment of Sister Michael Francine Duncan, a Sister of St. Mary of Oregon, as the new spiritual adviser. Sister Michael, vocation director and counselor for her order, previously was an administrator for CYO/Camp Howard, a motherhouse superior and a teacher.

Dozens of fires ravaging forests from the Washington border south to the California border left the region in a haze of smoke and forced the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist to evacuate the Bridal Veil Center near Corbett, at the mouth of the Columbia River Gorge. A number of parishioners in southern Oregon also have evacuated their homes and some schools are altering their schedules to mitigate the effects of poor air quality.

Several hundred immigrant supporters gathered at Portland State
University Sept. 5, followed by almost 1,000 that evening outside
Portland’s federal building. It was all in opposition to the Trump
administration’s move to end deportation protection for immigrants
brought without authorization into the United States as children.

The Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women held its district meeting this spring at St. John the Baptist Parish in Milwaukie. The gathering included reports, Mass and a potluck.Virginia Durrin, district president, opened the meeting with a prayer and flag salute. Parish representatives reported on their events, and Marianne Prom of St. John the Baptist displayed a T-shirt — with the word “Welcome” in several languages — which was being sold as a fundraiser. Members discussed plans to attend the Portland celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Our Lady of Fatima apparitions, held at St. Mary Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Do you corcl? Ask any kid who went to Camp Howard this summer and the answer is likely a resounding “YES!” Corcls are round, shallow, durable boats and along with pedal kart racers, are the newest additions to the list of activities available for campers. After adding a giant swing and zip line (for campers ages 13 and up) and laser tag (for campers 11 and older) last year, camp staff decided to focus on new activities for younger campers. If the tire wear on the pedal karts and the excited shrieks from the pond are any indication, both activities were a hit.

HILLSBORO — This summer, some families at St. Matthew Parish are still thinking about a project carried out at the end of the last school year.

In seventh-grade religion class, students were studying the sacrament of matrimony. Their teacher, Leandra Wolf, asked them to interview a married person about the sacrament’s celebration and importance in their lives.

In Boston 15 years ago, news broke that multiple priests had committed child sexual abuse. That prompted investigations and lawsuits across the country. A decade ago this summer, a prayer service took place in Portland’s St. Mary Cathedral. It marked a conclusion of the Archdiocese of Portland bankruptcy, which had been caused by claims from almost 180 accusers. At the service, this was one of the prayers of the faithful: “We have chosen to save face rather than save children. We have been silent when the truth needed to be spoken. We ask for mercy, Lord.”

Revealed to her in the middle of the night, they were singsongy, bewildering and horrifying.

The poems would total more than 50 — composed from memories she at first could not understand.

They were a “nice and tidy way for little Patsy Jane to tell her story,” said Patsy Seeley during an interview in her North Plains home. With them, said the 67-year-old, came “an overwhelming sense of evil and darkness.”

A recent graduate of Jesuit High School drowned in the Columbia River Aug. 2, despite attempts by friends to save him. John Walker, 18, was trying to swim from a boat to the shore of Sauvie Island.Walker’s funeral was held Aug. 6 at Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church in Portland, with many of his classmates on hand. At Jesuit, he helped lead retreats and played football and baseball.

During Oregon’s early August heat wave, a crew from the Archdiocese of Portland Pastoral Center collected bottled water and went into the sweltering streets to hand it out to homeless residents. With temperatures topping 100 degrees for two days straight, staying hydrated kept people on the streets from serious harm. People received the cold drinks with joy as the staffers walked for more than two hours.

Portland Catholic Brian Willis, an attorney who helps human trafficking victims, was in Myanmar this spring where he met with three organizations that work with women in prostitution. One clinic reported that many mothers die during pregnancy and that some of the children have serious health problems.

A Portland woman in late June addressed Irish lawmakers and July 1 spoke before a large rally in Dublin, urging prohibition against screening that prompts parents to abort unborn children with Down syndrome. Karen Gaffney, a graduate of St. Mary’s Academy who has the genetic condition, said lives like hers are worthwhile.

In November 1941, children of St. Paul Miki School in Portland led a ceremony during which they raised a collection of United States flags. The stars and stripes had been gifts of the students’ fathers. By the next month, the patriotic men and their families were under suspicion and in April 1942 were forced into detention camps. The school closed, never to open again.

In Portland on Aug. 15, the feast
of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Dominican Father Gerald
Albert Buckley died. It was 62 years to the day after he professed vows
in his religious community.

Many well-intentioned people who serve the church insert this ninth beatitude into their work — to the detriment of their ministry. Effective leadership instead is based on radical love, which is grounded in trust, does not eschew conflict and allows for commitment, accountability and, ultimately, results.

The conference, which includes the state’s Catholic bishops, says
House Bill 3391 “forces insurance companies to cover abortion on demand
and it forces all Oregon taxpayers to help finance an extremist abortion
agenda that does not enjoy majority support.”

Traffic engineers at the Oregon Department of Transportation, a few
end-of-the-world groups and possibly ophthalmologists around the state
are talking about the total eclipse of the sun on Monday morning, Aug.
21, in apocalyptic terms. Catholics need not join in.

“I didn’t have any idea of gardening, and Huerta told me everything about it, and now we grow our own organic food,” says Catalina Angeles. Angeles’ 7-year-old daughter has grown up gardening and is keen on eating fruits and vegetables.

The family is part of Huerta de la Familia, a Eugene community garden education cooperative that received a $7,500 grant this year from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, CCHD for short.

Martice Bauersfeld takes a drag on her cigarette and flicks the ash away from the welcome mat beneath her feet.

Behind her is an open door revealing a full laundry basket and a cat litter box for the scrawny kitten she’s adopted. She pauses mid-sentence as a woman shouts angrily a few yards away. Bauersfeld smiles.

“We sometimes clash and aren’t all on the same page, but we are still trying to get to know each other, learning people’s stories,” says Bauersfeld. “I feel so fortunate to be here.”

The open door, the stoop, the sitting down to chat — they are all new and valued pieces of a life that’s moved off the streets and into an unusual community in North Portland.

SALEM — After passing out of the Oregon Senate June 8, Senate Bill 494 failed to pass through the legislature’s House chamber. The bill, which would have modified the state’s advance directive, was said by opponents to strip away protections from being starved or dehydrated to the point of death for mentally incompetent but conscious Oregonians.

LACEY, Washington — Approximately 250 young adults from Oregon, Washington, Utah and Canada converged onto the campus of St. Martin’s University July 6-9 for the fifth annual Ignite Your Torch Northwest conference.

More than 30 religious brothers and sisters from orders across the country, in addition to several priests from the Portland and Seattle archdioceses, joined youths for the four-day event. The conference featured workshops, keynotes, recreation and adoration, in which the religious played a pivotal role.